Buy this house for $149 and 200 words; Making your money work harder for you; Social Security and divorce, and more bits…

You can buy a house near NYC for $149… and an essay

A couple in the Catskill Mountain region of New York has been having a tough time selling their house. They’ve tried twice recently, but have been unable to sell it. They are trying a new, novel approach. They are asking people to write a very short essay on why they want the house. Along with the essay, you need to include a $149 entry fee.

It seems a bit odd that they haven’t been able to sell their house. The Catskill Mountain region has become trendy with Millennials.

For a modest entry fee of $149.00 (US Dollars) and your thoughtful essay of no more than 200 words, you just may win this beautiful vacation home for you, your family, and friends to enjoy. This waterside retreat is situated on 5.5 acres, with more than 250 feet of lake frontage on spectacular Swinging Bridge Reservoir in the town of Bethel, New York. Nestled among towering pine trees and beautiful forested acres, your vacation retreat awaits. Simply click HERE to enter.

Here’s a link directly to the offering: http://www.winlakefrontdreamhome.com/ I wonder how many people will enter… Given that this deal has been written up in the New York Times, I suspect they’ll likely get tons of entries.

What’s the house worth? Zillow values their property at about $336K, so all it takes is 2,255 entries for them to reach that figure… I suspect they’ll be getting many more than that. If they get 10,000 entries, they’ll be looking at $1.49 million. Maybe everyone should sell their house this way!

The winner will be the person who best answers the question: “How would owning the lakefront dream home change your life?” If you are looking for a house that’s about two hours north of New York City, you might want to sharpen your pencil and start writing .

Trump just halted a major rule about retirement advice

The rule was meant to enforce an idea that might sound obvious: Retirement advisers have to act in the best interests of their customers. On Friday, President Trump took a step toward halting it. It’s known as the fiduciary rule. It would have prohibited retirement advisers from accepting incentives for promoting certain funds over others. That can create a conflict of interest — and advisers don’t always have to disclose the incentives to clients.

The Latte Factor: Your Spending Reflects Your Priorities

The concept of the Latte Factor is one of the most divisive in personal finance. Money gurus get so worked up over whether the Latte Factor is a valuable lesson in money management, that one might think the issue were as important as the national debt. Most of the time, passionate responses pertaining to the Latte Factor are based more on book sales and page views than any rational consideration of the issue, though.

SF hired “Director of Financial Justice’ to remove fees that “unfairly punish” some

San Francisco has hired the country’s first-ever director of financial justice for a city. She will be tasked with determining which government fines and fees unfairly punish the poor and middle class, in San Francisco. There are four million Californians — 14% percent of adults — have had their drivers’ licenses suspended because they can’t afford to pay traffic fines and fees.

Social Security Strategies After Divorce

While no one wants to think about divorce when they are married or engaged, it is a reality. Roughly half of all marriages end in divorce, depending how you measure.. Those who get divorced need to know the rules and strategies for negotiating the Social Security Administration when it comes time to start drawing on your benefits. Just because a marriage ends, it doesn’t necessarily mean that lesser earning spouse still can’t benefit. It all depends.

One of the key benefits of Social Security is the spousal benefit – a payment at retirement that goes not to the worker who paid into Social Security over time, but his/her spouse. The payment was originally designed to provide retirement support for what were typically (at the time) stay-at-home spouses in a single-income household, and still remains relevant today for many spouses who take at least some time off from work to raise a family.

Top 11 ways to make your money work harder for you

Want to make your dollars work harder for you? Who doesn’t? Here are 11 excellent strategies to help you stretch your money. Some of these ideas are a little beyond my comfort level for most people, but there are still quite logical. One in particular: Get stocks that you’re happy to hold for the rest of your life.

While holding individual stocks is fine for people who closely monitor and understand how to analyze stocks, but most people are better off simply keeping their money in index funds.

Learn how the average American taxpayer got a $8,134 write-off

Tax time is here, and across the nation, Americans are looking for ways to cut their taxes. One tax break that nearly everyone gets to take is known as the personal exemption, and the larger your family is, the more likely it is that you’ll get to claim a greater number of personal exemptions. This lucrative tax break helps nearly all Americans in reducing their tax bills, except that restrictions apply to those with high levels of income. Below, we’ll go through how personal exemptions work and whether you can claim your fair share.

The Dodd-Frank Act Explained

You may have heard about the Dodd-Frank Act recently, and you may understand exactly what it is. Here’s a very good explanation. After every major financial crisis over the past century, policymakers in the executive and legislative branches of the United States government have passed sweeping legislation to overhaul the way banks do business.

The notion of banks being too big to fail has a rich history. Almost all of the greatest financial crises in American history were aggravated by the failure of large financial institutions, which further sapped confidence in the financial sector and, prior to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s founding, led to the destruction of countless peoples’ liquid wealth. This is why the eponymous founder of JPMorgan Chase worked tirelessly during the Panic of 1907 to stop the bank runs occurring up and down Wall Street at the time. His actions were vindicated two and a half decades later when an otherwise ordinary recession transformed into the Great Depression due to a tsunami of bank failures.

New App Earns You Money For Working Out

The Sweatcoin app banks one coin for every 1,000 steps. The currency can be used to pay for deeply-discounted products and services. For instance, 5,000 steps could get you a free yoga class, 15,000 can be used for workout clothes. The company hopes to eventually make money through deals with insurance companies, healthcare providers, and employers who want to motivate their workers to exercise.

There are several such apps, like “Bitwalking” and “Gympact.” “Charity miles” turns steps into donations. Free coupons are given out on “Nexercise”, and “Bodbot” provides free training sessions.

If this type of motivation is what gets you off the sofa, great! Do It!